Somebody Else ✔

Did I? Oh yes I did.

Hey there! Izzy kicks ass in this chapter ;) Cozza, don't get killed by those lizards ;) hugs and kisses- BoLoves.

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Cole.

Edited.

"You're ruining my life!" Aggie clamoured, trying to keep me in the suit jacket. I huffed to myself, but kept still and silent as Aggie tugged the suit jacket back on my shoulders and contemplated me in the mirror. "That low key looks good." She concluded, clapping her hands together. I stood on the small round platform in the middle of the room, amongst the orchids and white rose blooms. I felt like a dancing monkey, moving only on Aggie's command.

From the spectator seats; plush white leather lounges, my brothers laugh was louder than the storm raging outside. He was reading something by some dead French guy. He was sitting with his legs crossed, in a fine white suit. Bastard looked good, better than me. "Shut up, Lulu." I spat, but the rain lashing against the windows drowned me. Finally, it was feeling like winter.

The cool, clean scent of jasmine in the air irritated my nose and I couldn't keep from sneezing. Even though it was raining outside, the air conditioning was on. It was pretty clear by my grubby Easts school bag in the corner of the boutique, that I didn't belong here, but Aggie sure as fuck did and she pulled one of the many strings tied around her wrist to get us a private fitting.

While Aggie and the tailor knelt beside me and fretted over the length of the trousers, I mumbled, "I don't wanna do this." I played with the fine cotton cuffs of the suit. Aggie peaked up, holding her cheek in her hand.

"I know, Cole. But this is for your mum okay?" She whispered in my ear, running her fingers through my hair. "You're doing this because she deserves to be happy. And James makes her happy." Of course Aggie was right, and I fucking hated it. "Plus, I thought you always wanted a real dad." That was a low blow, and she knew it. I told her that when I had been a lot younger and a lot drunker. Plus, then I wanted Danny as my dad, not James Palmer.

Aggie had a habit of selecting what she would and would not tell me. Like today. We skipped out at lunch, and I had picked up Aggie from St Mary's in my rumbling Impala. She hadn't told me Luke would be there though.

"Are you self analyzing again Cole? You mustn't, it's terribly passe." Luke smirked at me with all the condensation of a big brother. The way he spoke though, that's what really pissed me off. Acting like he hadn't come from the same place I did.

"Well you'd know all about that, wouldn't you Lulu?" I sniped back and turned on the podium so the tailor could hem the trousers.

Luke and I were five years and leagues apart. Luke was studying law up at university and was fresh off a nervous breakdown brought on by a bad drinking habit.

I used to call Jace and Aggie and Alex about him. Terrified I was going to find him dead, slumped against the wall and his eyes dull and blank. That shit, that gut wrenching, sickening fear I used to feel when walking home from school, still woke me up in the middle of the night. He put me through hell, my big brother. And he had the luxury of not knowing what he had done to me.

It was kinda fucked though, cause Luke had saved my life. Like, he had saved me from the worst of our fathers vicious onslaught. He'd hide mum and I and go out and met him at the door when he came home drunk. On the nights when Luke didn't do that and he got his filthy hands on me, Luke would wrestle me out of his grasp and place himself there.

My brother. My hero.

I hated him for it though, like, why couldn't he just get himself together? Why was he strong enough to stop those beatings but he could never just get himself together? Why did I have to go through everything I did with him, only to have Luke fall apart? And why couldn't I just make it better, why couldn't I save my brother, like he saved me? But whatever, y'know? Whatever.